Salem
by Tsubaki-San
Summary: It's 1692 and Gale's life will change forever... Oneshot  I don't own Harvest Moon. T for safety. R&R


**Salem, **Massachusett**s 1692**

"Mummy..." A tired little boy, around five years of age, wearing a nightshirt approached a tall woman who shared many of the same features as the boy. She was tan and had silver hair worn in a braid down her back and had bright emerald eyes. She wore clothes that indicated that she lived in the 17th or 18th century.

"What is it Gale?"

"Cousin Vivian... She told me that villages are starting to get rid of witches and wizards by killing them. Mummy what will we do? We they target us next?" He said, clutching her skirt and looking up at her with his multicolored eyes. He was worried fro the past few days his mother had been gloomy and sad. She was not at all like herself.

"No darling, we'll be safe we just have to wait a tad longer until Daddy comes home then we can move. You know he's gone for at least three months when he collects Fugues over on Castanet Island. Anyway we live in such a small colony I'm sure it will take a while to spread to Massachusetts." The woman glanced around nervously, she was lying through her teeth and she hated it.

"But Vivian said that they were doing it in a few towns over and they were planning to start hunting during the night! And Daddy's been gone for so long without writing! Mummy, I'm scared!" The boy cried into her skirt folds. The woman looked at the fireplace and knew he would find out about it sooner or later. Her eyes were glued to the picture of her husband, son, and herself smiling during happier times for magical folk. There were words written across the top- _Lewis, Sara, and Gale; Salem 1691. _One of the perks of being a magic being was the benefits of new things like photos that normal humans hadn't dreamed of yet.

"Gale, come here." Sara held her arms out and scooped the Gale up, hugging him to her chest. "I need to talk to you about being a magical being, just in case I can't explain it when you're older."

"But Mu-" He stopped at one look into her eyes knowing arguing was futile.

"When you reach a certain age your aging process will drastically slow down, to the point of every fifty years you age a year. Every witch or wizard reaches this around their sixteenth to their twenty third birthday. You will watch people come and go and you mustn't get too attached to them or the pain will be too much to bear. When you reach that age you will begin to train with a master. You will train for one hundred years average."

"Mummy, how old are you?"

"I stopped counting after three hundred five, that's how old I was when you were conceived."

"Conceived?"

"Nevermind, that's a different story for a different time." She said coughing awkwardly. "Anyway... What Vivian said is true and your father didn't actually go to collect Fugues. He went to join a society for magic folk so he could protect families like us. But he was caught... Just five days ago... They burned him on the stake a few towns over..." She had to stop as she started to sob and became increasingly loud along with the sniffles and whimpers of her small child. Gale now knew the reason for his mother's recent depression.

"Gale... His mistake was telling a close human friend his true name and his friend turned against him for fifteen pence. Only tell your soulmate your true name or else you risk being controlled. We're going to leave tonight with a group of other witches and wizards from five different towns. I wasn't going to tell you until that time but you figured it out. I have my suitcase ready so I'll help you pack."

"Okay..." Gale said sniffling and clutching his mother's hand with his. They went into his tiny room and started packing. Two changes of clothes, a nightshirt, a blanket and his teddy bear, a spell book, and lastly a family photograph. Sara took a quill and scribbled out the names on top of the photo throwing it into a cloth sack.

"Alright, now we just need to wait until midnight and that's when they'll come by and pick us up." She sat back in her rocking chair clutching Gale, unsure of her future. "Oh Gale! Take this too!" She pulled out a shiny blue orb from behind a plank in the wall made for hiding something. "This was your Father's most prized possession. He would have wanted you to have it." She dropped in his bag with a plunk.

"Okay." He stared at his home. Everything he knew was going to be gone and it had happened so fast.

A knock at the door came around the time of midnight. Sara ran to the door and cautiously opened it, peeking out through a crack. "Oh it's you! Thank goodness." Outside stood a crowd of twelve or fourteen magic folk, looking around nervously. Four were women, two were men, and the rest were children. Vivian and her father were standing out there. For once his cousin looked scared.

She summoned her escape pack and waved Gale over, pulling a purple cloak over her head and a brown one over his. Gripping his hand they moved on trudging through the woods, stopping whenever a twig snapped or cowering whenever somebody thought they heard voices.

"This way!" A distant voice yelled. The group froze. Men were approaching and fast too. They heard barking and howling and shouting. They must have brought hounds.

"RUN FOR IT!" The lead wizard yelled as they sprinted towards the shelter they were originally supposed to go. Humans were approaching and fast. Gale turned his head and saw one close enough he could take a branch and hit him. He carried a musket and was wearing a grim, determined face.

"Gale!" Sara shouted pulling him in front of her and running faster than she ever had before. They heard a musket go off and a yell of pain accompanied by a scream of a little girl.

"DADDY!" Vivian screamed, stopping at the vessel that once carried her father. "DADDY NO!" Sara ran past, snatching Vivian's hand up in the process, towing her towards the shelter which had been disguised so no humans could see it or even enter the area around it.

"Got you!" A man yelled as they were only about fifty yards from the shelter. He grabbed his already prepared musket and pulled the trigger. Gale looked as the bullet zoomed towards him right for his head. He squeezed his eyes shut waiting for the impact.

But it never happened. Instead came the scream of the woman he loved more than anything in the world.

"MUMMY!" He cried out starting in her direction. It was too late though because Sara had been shot through the heart and her nearly immortal life had been ended, the bullet had been too fast for her to put a spell up. She lay there, eyes unseeing, her cloak had flown off in process of jumping. Her dark blue dress, becoming tainted in red.

Before Gale could get two yards in her direction Vivian grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the shelter. He arrived in a daze, tears streaming down his face. He looked around a bit, sobbing, before collapsing.

"Hello? Oh he's waking up! Are you feeling well?" A kind voice asked him. He stirred but did not open his eyes. This was not the voice he wanted to hear. He wanted his mother's voice. The one that sounds like chimes or a soft melody. This was not it.

"Hey wake up doofus." A familiar yet hard and sad voice commanded him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. The witch who was tending to him went to inform the others.

"Vivian?"

"No. I'm Vivi now. Vivian's too girly and innocent. Vivian's gone Gale. She left with my dad."

"My mummy's really dead then?" He whispered, feeling as he'd been punched.

"Yeah..." She whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Vivi held out his mother's purple cloak. Gale stared at it before taking it from her and burying his face into it. It smelled like her. Honey and lavender. It was almost like he was hugging her again. Almost. "They found it... It was next to her body. The burials are going to be today. Only seven of us made it."

"We'll work it out though. I promise." He said, with a unhappy smile, wrapping the cloak around him.

"Pinky promise." Vivi said with a weak smile holding out her pinky finger.


End file.
